For Health Of Miami, 500 Jobs On The Line

Top City Leaders Support Manager's Proposed Cuts

MIAMI — With the city in the midst of a financial and leadership crisis, Miami Manager Jose Garcia-Pedrosa came up with a radical proposal on Thursday: Cut 500 city employees within a year and save Miami taxpayers $15 million. ``Bring on the war,'' said Charlie Cox, president of a union that represents many of the employees who would lose their jobs. ``This city is a circus, a joke.''

Garcia-Pedrosa's plan was unveiled just weeks before the cash-strapped city begins negotiations with its unions over a new three-year contract. It also comes as a circuit judge prepares to decide whether to call a new mayoral election because of alleged absentee ballot fraud in the Nov. 4 race.

Under the proposal, more than 500 of the city's 3,592 employees would be gone by March 1, 1999. A group of top city leaders, including Police Chief Donald Warshaw and Fire Chief Carlos Jimenez, would recommend the reductions.

Few, if any, uniformed officers or firefighters would be cut. Many managers and administrative people would be left looking for work.

For Miami, rocked by last year's arrests of top city leaders on bribery charges, the uncovering of a $68 million shortfall and the impressive proof of absentee ballot fraud, the latest news was just another bombshell.

Though the city recently improved its financial condition by selling off land and raising fees, Garcia-Pedrosa said cutting employees was also necessary. And he said the timing was not an attempt to divert attention from the voter fraud trial.

``My reason for doing this is to improve the city's health,'' Garcia-Pedrosa said. ``It has nothing to do with what is going on in a courtroom.''

City leaders, citizens and union leaders expressed different opinions on the timing of the plan:

* Garcia-Pedrosa, who took office in January, said he made the proposal while still new to the job so as to have the political support to follow through.

* City Commissioner Tomas Regalado said it was presented now because commissioners are to vote next week on a controversial citywide fire fee. Cutting employees is better than raising the fee, he said.

* According to Cox, job cuts are being proposed because negotiations on the new union contract are scheduled to start in April.

* And Mayor Xavier Suarez said it was just the manager's follow-through on an idea he proposed during last fall's campaign.

``We have too many employees, entire departments that are not needed,'' Suarez said. ``It is a long-term streamlining.''

The plan took city employees by surprise. Even Warshaw did not know about it until Garcia-Pedrosa issued a news release and memo Thursday morning.

In recent years, the city has reduced several departments as residents moved north and the tax base shrank. Jorge Rivero, a marina maintenance worker, has seen his crew dwindle from nine workers to four.

City leaders don't seem to understand what their employees must do each day, he said.

``It's getting worse. They don't know what they are doing,'' Rivero said of city leaders.

Voters also reacted with surprise to the plan.

``We are the laughingstock of the nation,'' said John Tindall, 50, of Miami. ``I don't want to be part of it.''